Summary: LETTERS
The role of mentorship in prote´ge´ performance
R. Dean Malmgren1,2
, Julio M. Ottino1,3
& Lui´s A. Nunes Amaral1,3,4
Theroleofmentorshipinprote´ge´ performanceisamatterofimport-
ance to academic, business and governmental organizations.
Although the benefits of mentorship for prote´ge´s, mentors and their
organizations are apparent1­9
, the extent to which prote´ge´s mimic
their mentors' career choices and acquire their mentorship skills is
unclear10­16
. The importance of a science, technology, engineering
and mathematics workforce to economic growth and the role of
effective mentorship in maintaining a `healthy' such workforce
demand the study of the role of mentorship in academia. Here we
investigate one aspect of mentor emulation by studying mentorship
fecundity--the number of prote´ge´s a mentor trains--using data
fromtheMathematicsGenealogyProject17
,whichtracksthementor-